Games

Back in the day, it was always a pleasure to see your favorite game enter a top list. PC Gamer UK was, and still is one of the most prominent sites whose lists reflect the opinion of a majority of players. In the past PC Gamer, UK was one of a few relevant gaming sites whose opinion moved the masses. In the modern times, we have hundreds of sites that try to become relevant, and many of them fail. It’s safe to say that PC Gamer is still one of the most prominent gaming sites that brings us news about games and creates lists of favorite games both from the present and the past.

The PC Gamer issue that acknowledged the brilliance of C&C franchise

The 2007 issue of PC Gamer UK was the ever-famous Top 100 Issue. For the PCGUK mag, the Top 100 list is composed of the writers 100 most loved games. And all of us were pleased to inform everyone that two Command and Conquer games have made it into the list.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 was at the Number 60

Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars at Number 58

It was always good to see C&C getting in on the PCGUK list, just a shame they weren’t at higher positions.

How C&C franchise fares in 2017

Some of the C&C games are over twenty years old, and it’s interesting to see how they fare after all that time. Many games become irrelevant after a year or two (modern games) or in some cases after four or five years (older games). C&C franchise contains games that are always relevant, no matter how much time passes. Proof that backs up this statement is the latest top 100 PC games that PC Gamer posted. At that list, you will find C&C: Red Alert 2 at a 42rd place which is an excellent thing for a game that is seventeen years old.

Many other C&C games survived until modern times due to impressive multiplayer and modding community that is always working on something new.

Tiberian Dawn was a highly successful game that hit the market back in 1995. The game survived was so successful that it survived until now and it’s all thanks to an active modding community that stick with the game and updated many of its mechanics.

Now here is an excerpt from an announcement of the new additions to the Tiberian Dawn from a dedicated Serbian modding community.

Tiberian Dawn News Blitz!

Ladies, Gentlemen and all ships at sea, we in the bunker have received fresh intelligence on the work of the Tiberian Dawn mod team! This transmission, intercepted by our counter intelligence post south of Belgrade contains a recording of the interrogation of Duuude007 and Kushan by the fiendish Lord_Kane and One_Winged_Angel. The voice you will hear at the beginning and end of the transmission is that of Nikkita, the one who is to be the voice of EVA in Tiberian Dawn. And to this brother’s ears, it’s spot on!

– Brotherhood’s mobile artillery

Our agents in Serbia also uncovered these highly classified images of the latest addition to the Brotherhood arsenal, mobile artillery! Able to pound GDI bases into dust from well outside their range as well as make a devastating hit and run attacks, striking at the heart of the foe before retreating to safety behind friendly lines. Brothers, with the power of this new weapon, we cannot fail!

– Ezekiel’s Wheel – Missile launcher

Also, work has begun on what will possibly be the greatest addition to the Nod arsenal in the conflict. Ezekiel’s Wheel! With this devastating new weapon of war, it powerful missile armament and incredible new stealth technology rendering invisible not only to radar but the naked eye and all manner of devices will allow us to strike from nowhere! Truly, GDI will have nowhere to hide from the vengeance of the Brotherhood now!

– Recon bike with missiles

Also seen is the fearsome attack bike. The fastest unit on the battlefield and the staple of Nod recon units this particular butterfly does more than sting. With its heavy armament of twin Dragon missiles not only can it run rings around the lumbering tanks of the GDI mechanized battalions it can blast them apart too!

– Other additions

Our interception team has also uncovered a high-density data package that contains critical data on the Tiberian Dawn project. From Modelling to music and everything in between, it was of great interest to us. And I’m sure it will be to you too, so check out Tiberian Dawn Blog and give it a good read!

On the 28th of March 2007, the Third Tiberium War was unleashed upon us. This legendary franchise was being brought back from the wilderness by the EALA team, and it was bringing something with it….’The Visitors’

On the 20th April 2006, EA officially announced Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, at the time a ‘working title’ and a title that would go on to, and still does cause much debate among C&C fans. Many people suggested a change in the name, Tiberian Twilight and Tiberian Dusk were both mooted by the fans, but the team led by Mike Verdu has stuck to their guns with the title Tiberium Wars.

However, the community has shaped the development of this game. We must credit jshu0107 for setting up cncvision as a site which, thanks to the regular polls and ‘Ideas’ threads both there, and on the official C&C3 forums have been acknowledged by the EA Community Representatives, Predator and Apoc as being read by the development team. Some successes jshu and the community as a whole are issues ranging from major; Blue Tiberium, to the smaller; roofs for the GDI Buggy.

The proof that community knows how to shape a game

While many people have lambasted EA for their handling of the C&C franchise, it is important to note that they have involved the community and kept us appraised of the development progress. With features such as the Newsletter, Developer Blogs, Podcasts and work from Predator and Apoc on the C&C3 forums and ‘away from home’ on sites such as gamereplays.org. Oh, and of course perhaps most significantly the Community Summit held before Christmas. This was where key figures from many relevant Command and Conquer fan sites were invited to the EALA studios to play the game and hold discussions with the Dev. Team…and they also had a great laugh while they were at it.

Tiberium Wars is based on EA’s SAGE game engine used in C&C: Generals and the Lord of the Rings series. It has been heavily updated and modified since we first saw it back in the day. From videos we have seen, explosions, gunfire and many other aspects were shaped up very well. Despite some early clipping issues and worries on the Juggernaut’s firing stance with the latest batch of videos, the game came to an excellent state engine wise.

Faction in the Tiberium Wars

Onto the factions, we have three of them. The Global Defense Initiative, The Brotherhood of Nod and a mysterious alien faction referred to as ‘The Visitors’ by Kane and ‘The Invaders’ by GDI forces. The campaign is multi-dimensional. You start as GDI and then take to the battle as Nod. You will end with the Alien forces. To intersperse the missions the classic FMV’s are returning as does Joe Kucan in reprising his role as Kane. Many other Hollywood stars will appear such as Billy Dee Williams and Michael Ironside. There are due to be 30+ missions; a key feature will be that choices made in the campaign will affect the story later on. You have been warned!

Changes to the gameplay

The gameplay has also gone under the scalpel so to speak. Those that followed the development of the game could see some shifts in the way GDI and The Brotherhood play (no more GDI Mechs). In general, only the Juggernaut remains, and Nod has a new top-level unit, The Avatar.

Despite some subtle changes the GDI remained focused on using pure power to dominate the battlefield; The Predator light tank is used for speed, while the Mammoth tank implemented a split-tread system that can roll in behind to pulverize the enemy.

Nod remains the faster-paced side to play; Flame Tanks although having undergone a massive face lift, again deal admirably with infantry. The Avatar Mech can be seen as one of the harder units to play, but in no way less powerful – having the ability to rip pieces of other units off to use itself –and this changes the dynamic of many battles. The Aliens use a different style; they have a basic unit which can swarm and a Tri-pod unit that can fire on multiple targets at once. The Alien units are comparatively weak against infantry but strong against vehicle units.

The highly desired update of the interface and multiplayer

The interface was changed at this point as well – while remaining in its core a C&C interface; a new innovative side bar was introduced. Rather than taking up a whole block as in previous games, this is an adaptable menu system allowing for the classic build from the sidebar that many fans love. However, units such as the Crane and Mini-MCV have been introduced to cater for fans of more modern RTS game mechanics.

The multiplayer aspect of the game was the main focus of the game for many people. As ever with the development of this game the development team have been aware of this fact and have put a lot of time and effort into making sure the multiplayer aspect of the game were up to scratch. They spent the last few weeks of development time to ensure the balance of the game was as fine-tuned as possible. As with the single player game you were able to play as the GDI, The Brotherhood, and the Scrin. Multiplayer had an eight player battle system with the inbuilt Clan Support 1v1, and 2v2 Clan battles were available.

Command and Conquer 3 was released on the Xbox360, a big step for the franchise moving into the Next Gen console world at that time. It maintained the same features as the PC version.

Ten years later – The state of multiplayer

Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars multiplayer was a successful addition to the game, and its legacy still lives on. Even now you can find a dozen or two active lobbies across different platforms where you can play the game. There are some issues with account creation, so it’s best to pick up the game on Steam as their support knows how to deal with that.